Entities, such as financial institutions, provide a lockbox service for many of their clients. Generally, the clients that use the lockbox service are typically businesses that receive payments from their customers. For instance, when a customer pays a utility bill, such as a cable television bill, the customer sends the payment to a lockbox address, which may be, for example, a post office box. The financial institution, through an intermediate, such as a courier, regularly picks up the payments from the lockbox, opens them, scans them, and processes the payments for the financial institution's client. The lockbox service takes care of the entire process, from payment handling to crediting the client's account.
Currently, the U.S. Postal Service or other mail delivery service must physically carry each payment envelope to the physical lockbox address. Because the customers can be geographically diverse, this often means one or more days of delay between dropping off of the payment paper document and receiving the payment paper document at the lockbox address.